The Autobiography of Henry VIII_ With Notes by His Fool, Will Somers - Margaret George [259]
“Aye. Aye.” He kept bowing.
The; and he had known William Sandys since babyhood. The entire village had been proud when Sandys went to make his fortune at Court; although Hornbuckle had actually made more of a fortune by staying in Basingstoke. No matter, though, to the common mind: fortunes made at court were always magical, and better than those made at home. Sandys’s house was the envy of the village. And then, suddenly, the house was for sale, and Sandys entombed in the local church. Hornbuckle had bought the property, feeling both obligation and guilt. His friend was dead; how could he assume his property, walk in his shoes? Yet letting another do so seemed more of a betrayal. At last, reluctantly, he had let himself take possession of the property, although even now he itted. “Not quite yet. Now I feel nothing. As though a block of winter were in my heart, imprisoning it.”
“You will,” she assured me. “You will feel all of it, but only later. I do not understand it, but that is how it happens.” She was out of bed now, fastening on her garments. “Feeling returns only after the person is buried.”
“But I should feel something besides this ice-locked nothingness!”
“You feel what God allows you to feel. If nothing, now, it is for a purpose. God wishes you to feel other things.”
God, God, God. I was weary of Him and His capricious ways.
“Am I supposed, then, to care only for the French war at this time? Because England is in danger?”
“Evidently,” she said, and smiled. “One task at a time. God decides which.”
Her faith was so simple and sweet. But “simple” so easily slides over into “simplistic.”
CXXVIII
At Whitehall, where all messengers had gathered, awaiting me, it seemed that nothing was happening elsewhere in the realm.
Except that Brandon lay dead.
The English fleet yet lay anchored in the Solent and waiting for orders, with the French poised just out of sight. There had been no landings at any place along the southern coast. Nor had there been in Scotland. Francis had failed his promise there, as he failed all his promises. Now perhaps the Scots would understand the nature of their ally.
Across the Channel, Boulogne was quiet. The French interest lay elsewhere, for the moment. Yet Henry Howard was having problems maintaining discipline and morale amongst his men. They broke out in quarrels and rancour continuously. His fault or theirs?
I issued orders: the fleet was to pursue the French, corner them, and do battle with them. In spite of the loss of Mary Rose, I believed we could cripple the French fleet and send it limping back to Francis, like a sick child. The Earl of Surrey was to return to England, to attend the state funeral of the Duke of Suffolk. The armies at all points were to continue to maintain their posts.
As I must maintain mine. My health, seemingly so improved by the earlier campaign on the Continent, had deteriorated. (I can safely write it here.) Fluid had accumulated in my leg, so that sometimes I had no sensation in it, and it was swollen and ugly. There was no resurgence of the open ulcer, Jesu be thanked. But I feared that any hour it might be reactivated.
Also (I hesitate to write it even here) ... there were nights when I thought I heard the monks again. The ones who had been in my chamber when ... during that time after Catherine’s execution. They stood in the corners and mouthed the selfsame words. But now I knew them to be false, so I heeded them not. Why did they continue to haunt me? I had done nothing to encourage them. Was it that they scented a weakened man?
Weakness. It drew forth all the jackals, to snap and snarl and quarrel over their victim. But I was more clever than they, the jackals roaming about my kingdom and Privy Council. They had only their noses, to scent a sick man; I still had brains and pomoutheont>
All would be well.
Except that Brandon lay dead.
A state funeral is a formidable thing. I had never attended one, not as an adult. I hated them. All the protocol, all the rank and privileges which must be observed,